November 18, 2007

Guns on campus.

The University of Wisconsin is not a gun-free zone.

IN THE COMMENTS: Rhhardin remembers his own high school days, which looked like this:

30 comments:

Bob said...

Glenn Reynolds just linked to an article he's written, "Guns and Gay Sex." As provocative a title as you can get, I suppose.

http://instapundit.com/archives2/011806.php

rhhardin said...

Secure location

When I was in high school, there was a rifle club, a gun and rod club, a hunting club. Kids carried rifles on the school bus, transporting them back and forth. Rifle meets were held with other high schools.

This was in Hillside, NJ, in the shadow of NYC, in 1959.

Nobody thought anything of it.

Apparently old-time high school students didn't have the nanny state to tell them they're irresponsible.

rhhardin said...

rifle club con't

See?.

Yearbook pic.

Jennifer said...

My high school (also, Obama's school) still has a riflery team and an air riflery team.

Synova said...

My high school didn't have a rifle club but the shop class made custom wood rifle (actually, probably shot-gun) butts and antler handled buck-knives.

My college had a pistol team (which I was on before I got too busy) which used the shooting range ON CAMPUS in the basement of the Old Field House, which was also used by the Army ROTC from whom I won a turkey at their sponsored "turkey shoot" my Freshman year. (The range couldn't be used for anything larger than a .22.)

Peter said...

My school had an oversized closet in the Principal's office, during the season we'd stash or hunting rifles and shotguns there so we could hunt our way home, except during fishing season.

It wasn't that long ago, either. The most common thing in the world used to be a boy, or several boys (and the occasional girl) on bicycles, usally with a dog or five runnin' alongside, with .22s or single shot shotguns. These days? Kids don't even ride bikes out of sight of the parents.

Brian Doyle said...

Yikes.

Jeff with one 'f' said...

My high school parking lot was full of trucks with guns locked in them- students would go hunting at dawn, then go to school. This was in suburban Houston in the 80's.

Sara (Pal2Pal) said...

When I was a sophomore in high school, we all took an NRA Rifle Shooting and Safety course. I don't recall how that came about, but it was a class event and, as I recall, lasted over six weeks or so.

I do remember how surprised I was to learn that the indoor gun range was in the third basement level of my elementary school. I was more surprised that there was a secret 2nd and third basement than I was that it was a gun range. It was kind of dark and spooky. After I was certified, my Grandfather gave me his own prized rifle as a reward, which I have since passed on to my son as an heirloom. This would have been approx. 1962 or so.

Sara (Pal2Pal) said...

I neglected to say that my high school was in Western Pennsylvania, Johnstown, PA. (Yes, Murtha's town.)

Anonymous said...

Like gun. Gun good. Go BANG! Liberal-progressive-socialist-race-class-gender-activist/idiots all fall down.

Drat. It was only a dream...

mtrobertsattorney said...

And there were no school shootings back then!! How can this be??

I guess I'm gonna have to revise my animistic theory about guns.

reader_iam said...

We don't own any guns, but I certainly grew up in a household containing them, and in fact was taught to shoot a rifle, complete with target practice, in elementary school.

reader_iam said...

Not by the school; by my father, when I was in third grade.

MadisonMan said...

I thought this was a very interesting article. In the same vein, I've had two students tell me they won't be in class this week 'cause they're going deer hunting.

When I was a Boy Scout, we practiced shooting at the rifle range in Rec Hall at Penn State. The range was fully stocked with firearms. I wonder if it's still there.

Unknown said...

The range Rec Hall at Penn State is probably no longer in use. I used it in my undergrad days in the early 1960's as part of our required PE course. Using the range was required of all males because we had to get our instructors' chit to teach game laws, marksmanship, and gun safety. The legislature had just added a requirement that all new hunting license applicants pass a course, and there weren't enough instructors.

This range, and many other old ranges, were put out of commission by the Feds. No, not BATF, the EPA. Recall that the range smelled of cordite and such, and all those fumes are toxic. The small amount of lead aerosol is also toxic.

At the school where I currently teach the range is no longer available even to the ROTC detachment. The cost of a ventilation system to handle the required air flow is high enough that most schools just have shut down the ranges. Darn!

Unknown said...

Opps. Now I see why my password wouldn't work. The comment by Joanne above was actually by her other half.

Simon Kenton said...

In 8th-grade history I was reading an article on Bahai when Mr Thiebolt, our teacher, dropped a snub-nose .38 on my desk. He knew I (and a batch of other kids) was interested in guns.

I was also one of those kids who strapped a Springfield '03A3 over his shoulder and rode his bike out to the end of the mesa to hunt deer.

Ron said...

Doyle need not fear -- haven't we bagged our limits yet?

Rich E said...

When I was growing up in NYC in the mid to late 1960's I belonged to a gun clun sponsered by the local police precent. I would bring my cased .22 on the subway with me when I went to the range all at the age of 15-20.

Each year we had a hunting trip to the catskills and everyone would have their cased hunting rifles and packs with them on the train as we went to the bus location. No one ever looked at us with any alarm.

former law student said...

One of the few native San Joseans I know used to take his shotgun to school during the 60s so he could hunt pheasants on the way home. That area filled up with tiltups for dot coms. (Tilt up: Five concrete slabs poured on the ground; four tilted up to form a box which is then roofed.)

Trooper York said...

In high school, I was a member of the archery club. Bow hunting is the real hunters way to go. I never was able to actually bag anything, and I eventually gave up the hobby to concentrate on fishing. But archery took a lot more skill and was a lot more fun. At least for me.

Unknown said...

I participated in the rifle competitions in the basement of Denver West High School (1971-73). That's two blocks from downtown Denver. Didn't seem unusual at the time.

T.K. Tortch said...

Same story here: Rifles / Shotguns in the gun racks in the school parking lot for hunting deer / turkey before school. I didn't have a gun rack: nowhere to put it in my car (a 1975 Datsun station wagon that my Grandad gave me. So I had to put in on the floor in back.

Somebody mentioned a 1903A3: friend of mine used a Krag in .30-40 Government calibre -- the rifle that preceded the Springfield.

Unknown said...

"I've had two students tell me they won't be in class this week 'cause they're going deer hunting"

Schools close for the first day of deer season here. They run tickers across the bottom of the screen, like they do for snow closings.

Biff said...

I was on my public high school's rifle team in New Jersey in the mid-1980s, and we even competed against the 1980s version of rhhardin's old team in Hillside. I was always very amused whenever we shot against the Queen of Peace High School's Rifle Team.

When I was an undergraduate, several of the Ivy League schools had riflery teams, pistol teams, and skeet shooting teams. Yale even had a couple of Olympians.

Penn State still has a rifle team, and MIT has a strong team, along with quite a few others. Take a look at the MIT Team's site for more info.

Another interesting factoid is that riflery is a coed sport -- there is no appreciable difference in shooting skills between genders, and many of the US champions have been female. It actually complicates things in international competition, since the US rules are fully coed, while international rules typically have separate male and female teams, so US teams have to break up to compete internationally.

woj said...

Biff, i was on Hillside's Rifle Team during 81-85, so i would have shot against you. loved those days.

Biff said...

Hey, wojtowicza, I'm sure we did shoot against each other! I was on the Union High School team. Coincidentally, I just learned via Facebook that the old UHS team is having a reunion next weekend. Cheers!

woj said...

yeah i got an invite from mike maratto. you know mike and chris? mike is Mr Facebook. lol he was trying to get mr kleiman to come as well. he was our coach.

Biff said...

@wojtowicza Yep, I know those guys. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to the reunion.